A Family Doctor in solo private practice; I may be going the way of the dinosaur, but I'm not dead yet.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Another Strategy for Defunding NCCAM

I have been as thrilled as others with the prospect of science regaining its rightful place as the driving ideology behind medical care in America, and I agree that defunding the wasteful and intellectually dishonest government agency known as the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine is an important start.

There is a nifty discussion on the blog Science-Based Medicine (which still hasn't been able to get rid of the sidebar ads for alternative medicine; I can't decide if this is funny or pitiful) that points out NCCAM is a political creation and as such, will require politics to successfully dismantle it. I believe another --additional -- strategy will be helpful:

If the next Surgeon General were to adopt the elimination of Quackery -- whether known as "alternative," "natural," "complementary" or "integrative" medicine -- as his or her major issue, that bully pulpit might help generate enough of a popular political groundswell to overcome the few credulous members of Congress who pushed the whole thing onto us in the first place.

Somehow, I don't think Sanjay Gupta is up for that, so I hope President Obama picks someone else.

A few years ago, my mother-in-law was complaining of a painful rash on her hip, which she was treating with over the counter ointments.After over a week without relief, a family member convinced her that colloidal silver would solve her problem. My wife and I stepped in at this point and convinced her that she was dealing with something that required a professional. After a trip to her doctor, he started treatment for her shingles.

I don't think alternative medicine scares me nearly as much as the people that are willing to foresake science to fund what used to be known as snake oil.

As a nurse, I am grumpy that nurses are always trying to push for this crap and re-brand it as a "nursing" thing that we can and "should" do to help people. "Hey, you want to take this Reikki course or Healing Touch seminar?" Um, no.